seeing was quite good for this Venus observation sketched around 5:00 pm local time. i used my 8" dob @ 200x & 250x with 5mm & 4mm UO Ortho ep's. at first i could see nothing irregular on the disk, but with some patience and using a red filter some darker markings began to stood out. they didn't seem fixed but shift position, probably my mind playing tricks on me but then i popped in a variable polarizing filter to cut down on the glare more, and that made quite a difference. after staring at venus for about 30 minutes this is the best i could get. i hope it's a bit realistic.
i also tried a light blue filter + variable polarizing filter, but i felt the red filter was better for bringing out more contrast.

(while i was looking at a bright yellow venus against an orange background, i prefer using more of a skyblue background for the sketch even though i could see nothing without the filters!)

An excellent observation of Venus showing the faint Venusian albedo features. The use of filters (Wratten 23A or 25 (light red to red) or W38A (blue)) can help bring out these elusive albedo features. Sol also showed that the new Burgess Optical Contrast Enhancing Diagonal (CED) can also bring out features over Venus. Thank you for sharing them with us all.

Rony: your sketches become frightening more realistic every time & the accompagnying reports are always fun to read!

Eric: i'm a little less around now, but i'm sure i'll begin posting a lot of mars sketches by the end of 2009 i hope to start by september...

Mark: i definitely think not using filters is the cause of you not seeing details on venus. i use 8" and the unfiltered view is waaaay to bright, so i can only assume your 10.1" will only be brighter. as Sol says: Venus can take a big cut in light. my variable filter was on the darkest setting for the sketch!